The long term objective of this research is to investigate how people's understanding of conditions medically defined as depression influence self-care patterns for depression. This study of self-care behaviors will explore: 1) the primary factors involved in the evident treatment gap between a disease model of depression and the practices and knowledge that inform people's attempts at care for their depressive symptoms, and 2) the proposed understanding of alcohol use as a form of self-care rather than only a provoking factor of depression. This research will take place in a poor, urban setting of Santiago, Chile. The overall research design is a case-based, 18-month longitudinal, ethnographic study of the development and utilization of care-seeking behaviors for depressive symptoms by community and hospital-based samples of people meeting DSM-IV-R criteria for minor depression, major depression and co-morbid depression and alcohol abuse/dependency. It will rely on screening and diagnostic tools for depression and substance use, bi-monthly open-ended interviews with subjects, and a general ethnographic study of the social and economic context of mental health care.